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Everything I know about good API design

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428 points ahamez | 1 comments | 24 Aug 25 19:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.213s | source
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zahlman ◴[24 Aug 25 22:54 UTC] No.45008539[source]▶
Anyone else old enough to remember when "API" also meant something that had nothing to do with sending and receiving JSON over HTTP? In some cases, you could even make something that your users would install locally, and use without needing an Internet connection.
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chubot ◴[24 Aug 25 23:08 UTC] No.45008640[source]▶
Well it stands for “application programming interface”, so I think it is valid to apply it to in-process interfaces as well as between-process interfaces

Some applications live in a single process, while others span processes and machines. There are clear differences, but also enough in common to speak of “APIs” for both

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1. 1718627440 ◴[25 Aug 25 18:27 UTC] No.45017180[source]▶
In my knowledge, there is the distinction of API vs. protocol, i.e. whether you use the foreign software through calling into it or by serializing and sending somewhere. "web APIs" seam to be the latter not the former, so I don't get why they got christened APIs.